What is technology? What is the difference between a want and a need? Why is there a difference between a want and a need? Can’t there just be wants (and not needs)?
My inspiration for the OP is the IPhone and thinking back to 1995 when we first had Windows 95, AOL, Amazon, Ebay, Yahoo… and twelve years later we have Digg, YouTube, Wikipedia, and the SDMB, and we are finally Time Magazine’s Person of the Year. And now we are off into the future again with the IPhone in hand.
My inspiration for the Debate. In another thread about the IPhone, Dopers seemed to gang up on me. I say the IPhone is not a status symbol. Someone who has a cellphone says the IPhone is a status symbol. By that logic, wasn’t any cellphone once a status symbol?! Yes, some people don’t have an IPhone. And, yes, some people don’t even have a cellphone.
I get really angry when it seems people are attacking me. They attack me - and say I’m brainwashed. If I’m sitting here at my computer writing about the IPhone and I’m brainwashed… what does that make the geeks sitting in line at the Apple store?!! Why do you say that I’m brainwashed? You don’t say that people who are standing in line are brainwashed. You single out me.
You either single me out or you single out a group of your fellow man. Yeah, so, those marketers brainwashed you Kozmik for being excited about the IPhone. Or, those marketers infiltrated the brains of those fools in line at Apple. I’m sick and tired of this.
You could have a little glimmer of hope… that everyone will proudly show pictures of their newborn baby to kind strangers on their IPhone.
You could have one shred of light… that everyone will use Digg and YouTube, and transform the news media.
You could have the slightest view… that everyone will find music, movies, pictures, and news to brighten their lives.
If only everyone had an IPhone. If only they were cheaper. If only their was competion. You know there will be competitors, you know they will be cheaper, and you know everyone will be carrying around an electronic gizmo in their pocket that will change their day if not the world.
So I’ve had it. I don’t want a rant. I want a debate. I got a call from a loved one while composing this, and I had to stop. It was a ray of sunshine in my life. Things are so simple yet so complex. Humanity and technology. Or are they simple? Or complex? When I think about it, I say technology trancends humanity but it is we who create technology. Do we need technology or do we want technology?